When Donald Trump accused journalists of fake news, universities made fake news detection software and then Jacinda Adern implied free speech might be dangerous.
Both sides of politics want to limit press freedoms, as if we live in the days prior to the American revolution.
Some time back Brendon O'Neil in the Australian quoted the former New Zealand Prime Minister.
Ms Adern discussed "a new weapon of war." She described it as a "dangerous one." She said it threatened "human kind" and would likely drag citizens into "chaos."
Mr O'Neil said she referred to freedom of speech.
I believe that the only way to get freedom of speech is to push back against the polarization and take the moderate line on everything.
When both sides of politics want to shut down the media, as discussed, it is clear to me that we do not have any choice, other than to push for people to take the moderate line.
I can see some major problems. Firstly the far right want to say that the government has taken over the media of behalf of some sort of one world order. I don't agree with them, but at the same time I think there was a lot to be said for the Brexit movement and its break from the European parliament. I think it is important for a country to be able to stand on its own.
The idea that the press is part of a new world order needs to be taken apart and corrected just a bit. When people say these things, they like to imply that the so-called woke movement has taken over everything. I'm not sure I agree totally with that idea. If these ideologies had taken over the press, Brendon O'Neil would not have been allowed to write his article about Jacinda Adern in the Australian and Anthony Dillon would not have been able to state in his NewsCorp columns that he may not agree with everything which comes out of cancel culture.
Writers such as these are quite capable of taking the middle-line on important issues and can demonstrate that they can do just that.
The left needs to make some concessions as well, if we are all to take the sensible moderate line. Politicians abuse laws to make their own constituencies vote for them at the next election. Section 18c of the Privacy Act makes it unlawful to offend someone. Yes, there are votes in this from the more left-leaning voters and that's why they refuse to amend this law.
If, however, I was to say that the ice addicts in my local area made me feel threatened and then I changed that from ice addicts to junkies who loiter making me feel threatened, then I would probably offend someone. Yes I could be fined or worse. But what if I have to speak up against the "junkies," because my fear that one of them may attack me is extremely valid? What if not speaking up about my fears of these people means that the authorities cannot stop them from loitering near where I live? What if making it illegal for me to say anything against them means that one day one of them puts me in hospital, or worse? Things have to work both ways.
My main issue is that when we decide to polarise our society on just a few important issues, such as Covid-19, Climate Change, the Yes Vote in the First Nations People referendum and cyber-security, then everything else becomes much less important and less likely to be broadcast. This means that our governments and their bureaucrats will dominate our news services, based on what is not "misinformation."
We already have foreign language news broadcasts on the SBS reading Australian national news and it sounds very censored to me. The news services right through this century have been much less based on narratives, which will entertain people, as was once the case - yes these do entertain people, even if these three examples below sound sightly ghoulish or criminally insane! Such entertainment narratives include:
Who did it and have the assassins slipped the net?
The Justice Department is still trying to trace all the money that XYZ person shipped out of the country. It's unknown if they will get back the money,
and commentators are still trying to work out if the government will be kicked out of office after its handling of the tax system. All these are narratives, which keep people interested.
They have taken away our local catchment news in most cases and if you search Twitter for a State Reporter, most are in the USA. In Sydney, they have trashed all our state radio newsrooms.
We are at the point where a lot of people will just turn off from the news. Nobody wants to listen to government spin all day, or maybe they do, but either way, taking seriously some of this nonsense the government put on us, is, for my mind, the first sign of insanity Take a moderate line please ― Joseph Walz
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